The birthday party went off with only a few hitches, nothing too major. I learned a few things that day. The first being that next time Avery wants to go to a place like SkyZone where they charge you for the number of kids attending and then a short time in a "party" room, or in this case a table outside the party room we will just go to the place, pay for the kids individually and then go to a restaurant for eating and presents elsewhere. We only had 40 minutes for the kids to get their jumping shoes off and their own shoes back on, then eat pizza and cake. There wasn't time to open presents so we had to take those to Grandma and Grandpa's to open at our own leisure. It all worked out though, the kids had a lot of fun and Avery was happy.

Tierney came over afterward and Avery stayed at Gram and Gramps to play. I went home and took a much needed nap before making the whipped cream frosting for the confetti angel food cake I had made the night before. Then we met at Pizza Ranch where the Super Bowl game started and Avery was half asleep from her long day of playing. Afterward we came home and opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa and myself. She got all that she wanted and more and she began to open all the packages and play with her new things while Grandpa watched the football game and helped me fix my lamp.

Monday morning Riley had his appointment for his dental and lump removal of the pea sized little skin lump on his right ear. I dropped him off with Avery before taking her to school. By 11:30 he was done and recovering. His gums were a little inflamed, but no extractions were needed and no loose teeth. The ear bled a lot, but they put a mesh type piece over it to help the scab form and it has been just fine ever since. I picked him up after getting Avery at school around 3:30. He was still kind of groggy and whimpery, but was walking around fine and wanting to go home. We stayed home till 4 and then I dropped Avery off for swimming with Tim and I went to my kickboxing class at the gym. I worried a little bit that Sierra might try to start a fight with Riley in his weakened state so I called my neighbor Kenny and asked him to pop in and check on them to make sure all was well. Riley had thrown up a little but everything else was good. When I got home at 5:45 everything was hunky dory. After sleeping off all the ill effects of the day, he was back to normal this morning. The ear looks good and he's taking his medicine like a champ.

Today is kind of creeping by. I've done a lot, but I've had that..."I'm bored, now what?" feeling for most of this evening. We didn't have riding or therapy today because it was too cold. The high in Baldwin was only supposed to be 7 degrees. I had made plans to meet a girl from craigslist to pick up a pair of fleece riding breeches in Woodbury on the way, so I still picked up Avery and went out there. Luckily they fit perfectly! Then I dropped off my taxes, realizing I was missing one piece that I will have to fax over on Monday. Target was next on the list for ingredients to make Avery a birthday cake in addition to the one I got her at Byerly's.

The birthday plan is as follows: SkyZone in Oakdale, an indoor trampoline park at 10:40am. She invited our neighbor twins Vanessa and Victoria, my co-workers twins Courtney and Makayla, Elle and Payton from riding lessons, Tierney, Mikai, and Lucia. They jump until noon and then they have pizza and pop in the party room. I got her a Brave cake with Merida and Angus along with her own picture in her Merida costume from Halloween. After the party we'll come home and I'll frost the angel food cake I made today. Then we'll go to Pizza Ranch with Grandma and Grandpa and come back for cake and presents here. Phew!

Yesterday she went to Robin's where they had a little pre-party for her. Grandma Deanna came down and they did some clothes shopping. All but one pair of her jeans had gotten a hole in the knee so I asked if they could pick up some jeans for school. Well she's definitely all set now! She had a lot of fun I think.

So today after I dropped Avery back off at Tim's I went to the library to pick up some books I had on hold. Then I came home, unloaded everything and started cleaning. Pretty much everything is done now and the cake is in the oven. Avery will be home around 9, so until then...I don't know! I could read, watch Snow White and the Huntsman that I got from Netflix or an episode or two of Criminal Minds. But...meh.

Avery sleep walks every now and then and it never fails to entertain. I just put her back to bed after I heard her stirring in her room, I went in there and she was digging in her back pack muttering and I caught the words "I need..." I told her she didn't need anything, she could go back to bed. I had to actually pick her up and bring her back to bed while she continued mumbling about what she needed. Aww my sleepy girl. She is so funny. I wonder what she does when I'm not awake to see it?!

My poor sick girly is in bed now and hopefully will sleep through the night. This morning around 2:30 am she yelled to me that she was too hot. I told her to push off the down comforter that she got for Christmas. She then started coughing, crying and had a bloody nose. So we got up, stopped the bloody nose (not too bad of one, the humidifiers mostly do their job) and took 2 puffs of the albuterol inhaler. She calmed down but was absolutely burning up. I brought her out to the couch and took her temperature and it was 102.5 so I gave her some advil right away. She just wanted to lay on the couch with the tv on but the volume so low you pretty much couldn't hear it. I cleaned up the bathroom and putzed around a bit before I checked her temp again in about 20 min. It was around 100, so it was coming down. After letting Mom know I'd need her for a few hours in the morning so I could run in to work, I went back to sleep.

When I got up at 7:40 (which was no easy feat) I checked her temp again and it was normal. She was feeling okay and watched some cartoons while I got ready. I went to work and came home at noon. She was doing pretty good, had some food and Gatorade in her and we played some games. I checked her temp around 1 and it was back up so I gave her more advil. She still felt okay and we went to Walmart to get some more Gatorade and Madagascar 3 from red box. Around 4 she started feeling hot again. Her fever was back and at 102.6. She watched the movie quietly and looked fairly blah. I called the doctors office because it was too soon to give her more advil and I couldn't remember what temperature kids had to have before it was considered dangerous. They said I could alternate the advil with tylenol every 3-4 hours in between the 6-8 of advil. She didn't need to come in yet. So we did, and it's staying around 101. I've been trying to get her to eat and drink but she doesn't really feel like it. She did have some fruit snacks and a bowl of ice cream. Better than nothing I figure!

She had a bath and laid on the couch for the rest of the night. Now she's sleeping so I'm going to watch Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows that I got for myself at red box. We'll see how it all goes, and hopefully she's feeling better in the morning.

Yesterday the school phone book came out and Avery had her first phone call. It was ADORABLE. This little girl called and said "Does Avery live there?" and I said yes and asked who was calling. Her name was Aniyah and she's in Avery's class. So I gave Avery the phone and listen to them make plans for a play date was too cute. Avery stood in front of her calendar with a pen while they debated the merits of what day worked best. I told her Thursday after she was done at Friendship. Somehow the call was ended before they said goodbye but I told Avery to talk to her at school about it too. I don't know if she's coming over or not yet, but that phone call was just too much! I wish I had recorded it. I was grinning and cracking up in the hallway the whole time.

About 3 years ago I bought a dark purple satin Dora winter coat with a fuzzy light purple inside for Avery. It was huge and didn't fit until last winter. She had mostly passed out of her Dora stage but she still likes to watch it from time to time and she loves the fuzzy inside of the coat. Tonight when I put her to bed we were talking about her being embarrassed to ask for help during swimming lessons when she had trouble with her side breath because the kids can do it just fine. I told her everyone learns things at different rates so it's  nothing to be embarrassed about and there is probably some part of the lesson that she is better at than the other kids so it all works out. I ended by saying something about see, it's not so embarrassing after all right? And she said something to the effect of "yeah not like my Dora coat".

I asked her what she meant and she said she was embarrassed by it because some girl named Maggie said that she thought it was weird a 7 year old would wear a Dora coat. I told her there was nothing wrong with liking Dora, for one thing. It's a good show and she can watch whatever she wants. The other is that it's purple, fuzzy and super warm, so that's great all on it's own. I also told her some kids don't have winter coats and they have to rely on other people to help them get one so they don't get to choose at all. So be grateful that she has a warm coat and don't worry what other kids say about it.

We watched an episode of Little Bill one time that had a boy trying to get Little Bill to call kids names. He would say mean things to Little Bill to get him to retort back something in return. His dad told him the way that worked best for him to get kids to stop when he was little was to just say "So?" in response. So I told Avery to try that next time someone said something that made her embarrassed. So it would go something like this. A 7 year old still wears a Dora jacket? So?! And move on. ;) She liked it, hopefully it will work.

So many fun things going on. It's been a little crazy and it's not done yet but we're managing. So lets see.

Tuesday I took a half day at work so I could get to Avery's school to meet the truck and unload for the fundraiser delivery. Then we dispersed almost all of them, with about 6 orders being sent back because they were frozen and weren't picked up. There will be another pick up next Thursday for an hour for those. After that we had a quick PTA meeting. We were out by 7:15. I don't think that has ever happened while I've been going. So that was great, we got home in good shape, had a bath and went to bed.

Wednesday Avery had school and I stopped by and had lunch with her in the cafeteria. It wasn't really planned so she thought that was pretty cool. Tim picked her up from school so that I could go straight home after work and get everything ready to go spend the night at Stef and Mark's house in Scandia. I brought Sierra over to my parents house, had dinner with my dad and then picked Avery up. It's getting dark so early now that we had to find their house in the dark, which was a little challenging but we made it. The kids stayed up till 10 pm or so playing and talking and then finally went to sleep. Stef and I stayed up till around 12:30 or 1. Around 7:15 I heard Avery start talking at full volume with Lucia. Sofia hushed them for awhile but it didn't work so she was up too. Elsie was also sleeping in a play pen in the room so I think she got woken up eventually too. I managed to lay in bed with a pillow over my head until 8:30 when I finally got up. We had pancakes and sausage and then it was play time.

We went outside and walked around the paths they've cleared on their land. Riley had a great time running around and peeing on everything. We unloaded some wood from Mark's truck while the girls "cleaned" the garage. Then it was back inside for more playing. We turned on Planet Earth and I dozed until 4:00 when we realized we had to go in order to make it to see Hotel Transylvania by 5:05 in Oakdale. I dropped Riley off at my parents quick and we went and saw the movie. It was really quite cute and enjoyable. Avery was pretty pooped after all this activity and we picked up the dogs and came home, had a snack and she went to bed.

But first she managed to circle all the toys she likes in the Fleet Farm Toy catalog. I love watching her do that because it's exactly what I did when I was little. I loved getting all the toy books and figuring out what I wanted for Christmas. She's so practical when she's doing it at first it's hilarious. She'll ask me "Oh do we have too many other things like this?" or "Well this would really take up a lot of space in my room, so maybe not..." It's great. But I told her it was just a Wish list, not that she'd for sure get everything and that she could circle whatever. So then she went nuts and certain pages are covered in circles. Anyway now she's in bed, the animals are all snoozing and I'm debating what I'd like to do for an hour or so before I go to bed too.